John Morgan

Four years ago, I posted about John Morgan, one of the best journalists and TV presenters to have come out of Wales. (I did get his birthplace wrong: it was Treboeth, not Morriston, as this short reminiscence makes clear. My only excuse is a radio recollection by Morgan of a pub in Morriston which he used to frequent, as I was to several years later.) Since then, his reputation has become even more ephemeral. He does not appear in the Encyclopaedia of Wales, nor in lists on the Web of Welsh journalists and broadcasters. The crowning indignity came in the listing of today's "Wilson night" on BBC-Parliament, where his well-crafted profile of Wilson contrasted with Alec Douglas-Home was attributed to Richard Dimbleby.

Labour bus cuts hypocrisy

Eluned Parrott points out that while the Labour government in Cardiff Bay is about to cut support for transport by bus by one-quarter, Labour's transport spokesman in Westminster is criticising the coalition for taking one-fifth (five percentage points less) off the subsidy in England.

Petty discrimination by Dubai

The Evening Post confirms (apologies for Northcliffe Media's autoplayed audio advert) that Swansea City striker Itay Shechter was prevented by Dubai's immigration officers from joining his team-mates in a warm-weather training camp. This decision would be understandable, if still objectionable, if Dubai had a consistent policy on the subject of Israeli citizenship, but as this web page demonstrates her rulings on entry are arbitrary.

Two generations have passed since Israel became a state in its own right, recognised by the United Nations. It is high time that states within the region established diplomatic relations with Israel, as predominantly Muslim nations Egypt, Jordan and Turkey have already done. This would not signal endorsement of Israel's acquisition of land outside its agreed borders, nor prevent those states continuing to criticise Israel's illegal exercise of her military power. It would, however, enable bridges to be built with ordinary Israelis through tourism and sporting links.

Nothing became his tenure like the leaving of it

There will be time enough to debate the record of Pope Benedict XVI and, indeed, the position of the Roman Catholic church in society. However, the Pope's decision to retire while he was still in good mental and physical health for a man of his age is not only a bold move (the first time that a Pope has resigned since 1415) but also a progressive one. Before the improvements in medicine and in public health of the last century, it could be expected that the grim reaper would take off most people while they were still compos mentis. Nowadays, dementia is looming larger as a scourge of old age. It is said that the late John Paul II had lost his mental grip in his latter years and that the then Cardinal Ratzinger was one of those who advised him to retire. Now Benedict has himself set the precedent, making it easier for his successors to step down in dignity when and if they find that the office becomes too much for them.

Children's services in Neath Port Talbot

Failures in the county borough's children's services are now coming out into the open, even in the Labour-leaning Evening Post. This report highlights the failure to recruit staff, leading to employment of agency staff. Unless things have changed in the year since I was on the council, there is also a higher than average turnover of social workers. Both resulted, in my opinion, from poor human management skills on the part of senior officers. Thus the financial troubles were a symptom, not a cause.

The poor climate of relationships within the department is probably the reason for the continuing failure to recruit. The management was belatedly changed by the Labour cabinet in 2011 but reputations linger.

The financial implications for the council tax payer are bad enough. More importantly, children's lives are put at risk. Misjudgements are made in the other direction, so that more children are made the subject of orders than need to be.

The Labour Welsh Government has protected the Labour council in Neath Port Talbot for long enough. They need to intervene as they did in Swansea four years ago, where Liberal Democrats were in charge of the council and struggling to recover from years of Labour control.

County roadshow hits Ynystawe

An email from The Balconiers informs us that the Glamorgan county cricket roadshow will be at Ynystawe CC next Wednesday 13th February at 18:30. It will be an opportunity to hear about the county's plans and to quiz key people, both players and coaches.

More details at www.glamorgancricket.com.

Private rents: what are the true figures?

"Private Eye" this week cites a Shelter report that rents have risen 2.8% in the last year. The report is said to be based on a government agency's statistics. Yet Inside Housing magazine reported last month that there are doubts about the adequacy of those statistics. Another interpretation of the figures is that 85% of private rents have risen by less than the Consumer Prices Index*.

As housing benefit is about to be shaved, and made subject to local authority judgments, it is essential that relevant and reliable data should inform the increasing debates.

* CPI itself looks like jumping in January as the rise in world cereal prices has now shown itself on the supermarket shelves.

Civil servants and government

The vexed question of the permanent civil servant's relationship with the elected government has been raised again with Conservative attempts to make permanent secretaries easier to sack. In an interesting short House of Lords debate on the subject (Accountability of Civil Servants: Constitution Committee Report) yesterday, I was particularly struck by the contribution of  Lord Armstrong, who as Sir Robert Armstrong was probably the most conflicted head of the civil service. His tenure coincided with the first nine years of the Thatcher government.

In his closing remarks, Sir Robert was "reminded of the charge that Queen Elizabeth I gave to Sir William Cecil in November 1558, when she appointed him to be her principal Secretary of State - in effect, her Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service. She said: 'This judgment I have of you, that you will not be corrupted by any manner of gift; and that you will be faithful to the State; and that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel you think best; and if you shall know anything ... to be declared to me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only'."

 To knowing chuckles from fellow cross-benchers who could see where this was going, Sir Robert said that it was also worth remembering "the advice that Sir William Cecil gave to his son and successor about what happened when he and the Queen disagreed: 'As long as I may be allowed to give advice, I will not change my opinion by affirming the contrary, for that were to offend God, to whom I am sworn first; but as a servant I will obey Her Majesty's commandment, and no wise contrary the same, presuming that she being God's ... minister here, it shall be God's will to have her commandments obeyed'.

"I might not have put it quite like that; I might have referred not only to her divine mandate, but to her democratic mandate too. However, I recognised instantly that that was how I felt in my dealings with Mrs Thatcher when she was Prime Minister and I was her Cabinet Secretary. The two quotations taken together seem to quite neatly and pithily encapsulate the duties of civil servants to Ministers."

Amen.